dinsdag 7 april 2015

*~* Release Day Blitz ~ Dark Instincts by Suzanne Wright *~*

Available
in the following formats: kindle edition, paperback, unabridged audio
download, and MP3 CD, audiobook

Synopsis

It
happens whenever wolf shifter Roni Axton is near Marcus Fuller: a
crackle of sexual awareness that’s intoxicating...and deeply
annoying. Marcus is a pack enforcer who oozes power, but Roni is
lethal in her own right—nothing like the flirty females who flock
around him. Even still, his possessive gaze makes one thing clear.
Marcus has singled her out for seduction, and he wants to make her
sit up and beg.

No
matter how aloof and unfazed Roni acts, Marcus can tell she wants
him. When a brutal attack by a jackal pack forces them to work
together, it’s the perfect opportunity for Marcus to chip away at
her defenses—until he falls into his own trap, completely
unprepared for the intensity of their connection. Roni is the only
one who’s ever seen past his shifter charm and discovered the man
hiding beneath it. And for Marcus, claiming Roni once will mean
needing her forever.

Opening
your eyes to find that you’re upside down can’t be good, can it?

Through
the cobwebs clouding her mind, Roni Axton realized that it wasn’t
just she
who
was upside down. The car had toppled over.

Well
that sucked. Clearly the fuck-up fairy had made an appearance.

Strangely,
Roni felt no rush of panic, no fear. And despite that she was pretty
sure her head was bleeding, there was no pain. There was only a
feeling of weightlessness. Even the fact that her wolf was frantic
didn’t disturb Roni in this dreamlike moment.

Her
brain distantly registered that the car kept leaning sideways, as if
something was repeatedly pulling at it. But it was the various sounds
that penetrated her mental fog: low moans, a phone ringing, a child
crying, and strange voices arguing.

Sensing
that the ringtone and the moans were coming from her left, Roni
turned her head to find a male wolf shifter in the driver’s seat,
eyes closed. Tao.
Huh. Odd that the Phoenix Pack’s Head Enforcer was with her. She
rarely hung out with anyone outside her pack. In truth, Roni counted
very few people as friends.

Sadly,
she was very like her brother, Alpha of their recently formed Mercury
Pack, in that she found social situations uncomfortable. In Nick’s
case, it was because he didn’t like most people. In Roni’s case,
it was because most people didn’t like her. Even when she was a
kid, she’d found making friends difficult, especially at school. It
was kind of hard to fit in when you were a tomboy with a higher IQ
than that of your teachers.

It
probably made things worse that she didn’t “get” her own
gender. But she just didn’t see the appeal behind constantly
gossiping, shopping endlessly, asking deep personal questions, or
having different lotions for different body parts.

Roni
was more comfortable around guys, particularly her two brothers and
her Beta male, Derren. Men didn’t care that she wasn’t a people
pleaser, or that she didn’t know how to satisfy social niceties, or
that she preferred chocolate to living beings of any species. The
only female she thought of as a friend was her Alpha female, Shaya,
who—

A
succession of memories suddenly hit Roni hard: Shaya singing to a
toddler in the backseat, Tao playfully grumbling about the noise, the
sound of tires screeching, an unexpected impact to the side of the
vehicle, a blow to her head that made everything go black.

Grasping
onto those threads of memory, Roni remembered how she had escorted
Shaya—who was two months pregnant—on a daytrip to the zoo with
Shaya’s godson, Kye, and his bodyguard, Tao. The Alpha female had
wanted a break from Nick and his extreme overprotectiveness. It was
during the drive back to Phoenix Pack territory when a car had
slammed into theirs.

And
then she’d gone and passed out like a girl. How embarrassing.

Blinking
rapidly, she swiveled her head as much as she could. She might have
winced at the sharp pain that lanced through her neck if she hadn’t
been distracted by the fact that Shaya wasn’t in the backseat
beside a still crying Kye. That was when Roni noticed the female body
sprawled like a ragdoll on the grass a few feet away from the
vehicle. Fuck.

The
dreamy quality of the moment disappeared as reality crashed into
Roni, and her wolf howled in fear and rage. One word dominated Roni’s
thoughts: Out. She had to get out.

Forcing
a reassuring smile for Kye, who was squirming in his safety seat and
reaching for her, she crooned, “It’s okay, little man. Give me a
second and I’ll—”

The
car wobbled sideways again. “This crowbar is a piece of shit!”
griped an unfamiliar voice.

“Hurry
up!” ordered an equally unfamiliar voice. “We don’t have much
time before someone shows up. Coleman and Axton will sense through
their pack links that something’s wrong with their wolves.”

The
stranger was right about that: she could sense Nick’s rage and
anxiety. She could also sense Shaya through the pack link; she was
alive, but unconscious.

“I
can’t open the door, it’s jammed.”

A
growl. “Move. I’ll do it.” The car swayed again. That was when
Roni understood what was happening. Someone was yanking at one of the
rear door handles, trying desperately to get inside . . . trying to
get to . . . Kye. Oh
the fuck no.

Roni
awkwardly fought to unclip her seatbelt. It eventually snapped open,
and she cried out at the sensation of falling onto a bed of glass.
She shelved the pain as she righted herself and began to slide toward
the backseat on her stomach. “Tao, wake up! Get to Shaya!” All
she received was another moan.

“Shit!
One of them is awake!” Rather than flee, the strangers redoubled
their efforts to open the door.

Their
efforts paid off.

Just
as the top half of Roni’s body wriggled through the gap between the
seats, the door was yanked open, and a tanned arm reached for Kye.

Roni
unsheathed her claws and sliced at the limb, causing it to flinch
away. Her wolf growled her approval. “I swear to God, if any part
of your body tries to touch him again, you won’t get it back
intact!”

“You
bitch!” Two arms reached inside this time, both sporting claws of
their own. One set of claws acted as a barricade between her and Kye
while the other set cut through the belt that secured Kye’s safety
seat to the car. In a lightning fast motion, the arms caught him
before he and his seat could crash to the floor.

Roni
stabbed her claws through one long, muscled arm, past bone, and all
the way into the rear seat, pinning the arm in place. He howled in
pain, hurling obscenities at her. Well, she had
warned him; he’d chosen to ignore her, so there was really no need
for that kind of language.

With
her free hand, Roni worked Kye’s belt open. His little body toppled
out of the safety seat and onto her outstretched arm. If her wolf
could have sighed in relief, she would have. Curling her arm around
him, Roni pulled him tight against her body. Only then did she
release the would-be-kidnapper from the grip of her claws.

She
was feeling a hint of victory when someone grabbed a fistful of her
hair from behind. Turning her head as much as the strong grip would
allow, she realized that the second male had come at her from the
other side of the car. He held her in place by her hair while the
other shifter frantically struggled to drag Kye from her grasp. The
toddler was wailing and clinging tightly to her, absolutely
terrified. When two large hands got a firm grip on his little waist,
panic bit into her. No, no, she wouldn’t let—

Her
hair was suddenly released, and a scream mingled with a familiar
animal growl that meant Shaya had shifted into her wolf form. While
Roni was relieved that she was conscious again, Roni did not want the
pregnant female, ruthless or not, fighting a male shifter.

“Don’t
shift!” the other male yelled. “A car’s coming!”

Footsteps
thudded along the ground as the two males disappeared from view.
Seconds later, there was the sound of a car speeding away, and a
heavy sense of relief surged through Roni.

Hearing
Shaya’s wolf pawing at the vehicle, whining, Roni assured her,
“We’re fine.” But, really, Roni wasn’t fine. Her head was now
throbbing, her body ached in several places, and her vision was
starting to blur and darken. If she passed out again, she would be
seriously unhappy. Dominant females did not
pass out, dammit.

“Roni,
how badly are you guys hurt?” Shaya asked, back in her human form.

Roni
wanted to answer her Alpha female; wanted to ask Shaya how injured
she was and reassure her that everything would be fine. But Roni’s
mouth suddenly felt stuffed with cotton, her chest felt tight, and
black spots were dancing before her eyes. Worse, there was a horrible
ringing sound that made her head pound even more.

She
opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Her wolf began to
panic once more as the ringing became deafening and a dark veil fell
over Roni’s vision.

Suzanne
Wright lives in England with her husband, two children, and her
bulldog. When she's not spending time with her family, she's writing,
reading, or doing her version of housework - sweeping the house with
a look.